Immortality of Consciousness - Reconciling Ghosts and Reincarnation

originally posted by: intrptr
a reply to: Kandinsky

If people describe a solid 'ghost' in period costume, is their reality any different to someone reporting the apparition of a loved one who is still alive?

Yes. Each of these 'solid' encounters were not'solid' as you put it.

I didn't shake hands with them converse or interact at all. Since I thought they were real real people they were not as important to me at the time, as if I saw a ghost.

Hiya

What do you think the difference is between a period ghost* and the ghost* of someone living? Both have occurrences of being described as substantially real?

* for want of a better word

What do you think the difference is between a period ghost* and the ghost* of someone living?

For me, its their "dress" or clothing.

For lack of a better description.

When you see someone wearing this, standing in an open windo of the top floor of a hotel room overlooking the park with a blue light 'surrounding' her, her hair done up in a bun and staring up the valley…

you go, humph, thats odd, not exactly alarming, but odd. Especially when you glance away and back and the windows are closed, the curtains drawn, the room dark.

Like that (snaps fingers).

Okay all right, its just me…

Then two weeks later at a bar down the street eating a lunch sandwich, you overhear the bartender describing exactly what I seen down to the nth detail. Dubbed, the lady in blue, who looks out the window and waits for her long lost love.

Apparently the story goes, her man went off gold mining up the hill and never came back. She waited there for him to return but he never did. After some period of time had passed, distraught and her money run out, she committed suicide in that room. Before she died people at the park used to see her standing at the windo looking out for him, the same way I saw her look up the valley while I was watching her.

The bar tender retold me and the patron the story again so I could get the whole thing, and he described her as wearing a blue dress. No, I said, She's wearing a white dress. The blue is a light coming from behind her.

He finishes up by saying the hotel sealed that room at the top of the stairs because whenever they rent it the guests can't stay the night because of the commotion she causes.

I've been back there many years later, and the place is built up, it looks all different, I can't tell where the hotel is anymore.

(PS) I wasn't alone when I saw her, but my friend was behaving really odd when we were watching her. Later at the bar he was with me and the patron was joshing, saying you guys are making this up and I said no my friend right here was with me. I turn to him and I said tell what you saw and he wouldn't or couldn't. I could barely get him to finally acknowledge he saw something…

Its the weirdest thing about ghost sightings people react to them differently. I don't know why it was so difficult for him to admit he saw a ghost, he was there, saw it too. then I go oh, right. Ridicule, people think you're crazy…

This was somewhere around 1990, Saratoga California. When I google it what comes up is a ghost at Moss Landing…

Blue Lady

I think the blue light is an oft reported phenomenon. I just thought it was some rich vain lady on vacation in a room with a blue light. Saratoga is this sort of quaint resort historic kind of small tourist trap town…

originally posted by: rshackleford
If we were to go by the theory that ghosts were some sort of 'reflection' rather than actually the 'being' of a person that is now... no longer physical in the same way, would that mean that someone could both reincarnate and 'be a ghost?' Of course that ghost wouldn't actually be that same 'being,' the person would have moved on into another form, but even in doing so could have left behind some kind of imprint on reality that remains. If that were the case then that person could in theory encounter the ghost of their past life and perhaps have a greater sense of familiarity or be more prone to experiencing the 'ghost' because it is an imprint of their own self. This doesn't seem like it would be possible of course if a ghost were actually the spirit, or whatever you want to call it, of a person. I suppose if there are indeed ghosts then it's possible there are also different kinds, both the spirit still there or the imprint from people on an area and that may explain why there seem to be different kinds of ghost encounters. The idea of ghosts repeating some kind of loop, always showing up at the same time or doing the same thing has always seemed to suggest to me that it is indeed some kind of imprint as opposed to a spirit just doing the same thing over and over again.

I think the Ancient Egyptians had a similar theory about this with the Ka ba, and Akh. One stays her, the other moves on, and one can return to the living.

a reply to: intrptr

It's as if, perhaps, a sliver of what someone is gets held in a moment in time like a bug in amber. The lady in blue might have a romantic back story, but no sense of self or thought processes. Otherwise, she wouldn't spend decades in one location and might instead seem like an example of a systems feedback loop.

Its the weirdest thing about ghost sightings people react to them differently. I don't know why it was so difficult for him to admit he saw a ghost, he was there, saw it too. then I go oh, right. Ridicule, people think you're crazy…

Hmmm, it's like any interaction with the liminal or unexpected. Our brains struggle to integrate it into our world view and seem to either deny/bury it or begin adding layers of narrative onto the experience. It's like the experience tests the mettle of the percipients huh? You were changed by your experience and your friend pushed it away and forgot it.

ETA - the blue light aspect reminds me of Marian apparitions and also Father Gill's sighting.

a reply to: Kandinsky

The lady in blue might have a romantic back story, but no sense of self or thought processes. Otherwise, she wouldn't spend decades in one location and might instead seem like an example of a systems feedback loop.

She looked right at me, away and back. I saw her eyes looking at me. I was some distance from her. She looked right at me, twice.

Same with the old man ghost I saw. He was seated, his legs crossed, both hands resting on his cain…. looking right into my eyes. His expression changed as he obviously became more aware of my seeming incredulity. If I had to put to words his inflection, it was mocking the surprise I must have been showing upon suddenly seeing another person in the room where there 'shouldn't be'. Not disdain or arrogance, more like 'here I am, what do you think?'

The ghost in Juvenile Hall floated down from the ceiling and disappeared right between where we were standing. The patch of 'shimmer' hanging in the air began to move down toward us and, as we stood transfixed, it steadily, slowly crossed the few feet of distance to settle between us and blink… gone.

These are not random actions of "loop back". These are living entities with purposeful actions.

I know its subjective, for you. I can't overcome that healthy speculation, just recounting my impressions.

I like you Kandinsky, you are a real heart and soul person, so with you I go into a little more detail.

You must understand these aren't everyday events, they are exceedingly rare and profoundly attention getting. They were seared into my memory.

Nope, definitely not loopback, imo.

a reply to: intrptr

I'd really like to see one with my own eyes and, preferably, with company so we can cross-check what we remembered seeing. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me that anyone would be making guest appearances in this life when we've long since left it behind. The feedback loop idea is a stepping stone for my mind to begin to make sense of how any entity can appear to our senses. At the same time, I'm not the type of skeptic to be dismissing what people describe or reinterpreting what they thought they saw.

In a way, I'm halfway there due to a number of experiences that fall slightly outside the boundaries of conventional explanation.

Sometimes I wonder if these apparitions are like pokers from Elsewhere stirring at the embers of our imaginations. Whether UFO, ghost or poltergeistic knockings, they all generate a lot more energy in the imaginations and perceptions of the percipient. I know a lot of skeptical folk would laugh at the notion and yet the history of humanity has been influenced by these things. In some sense, it hardly matters if they are real or not because their existence still effects the course of human history and threads through the daily realities of most people on Earth.